The Scoop - Investigative Reportinghttp://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting
Investigative ReportingWed, 24 Jun 2015 21:14:04 +0000en-UShourly1Yet Another Effort to Keep the Public in the Dark about the Public’s Businesshttp://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/yet-another-effort-to-keep-the-public-in-the-dark-about-the-publics-business/
http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/yet-another-effort-to-keep-the-public-in-the-dark-about-the-publics-business/#commentsWed, 24 Jun 2015 21:14:04 +0000http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/?p=6498It is extraordinarily well-settled law in Connecticut that personnel records related to the official conduct of our civil servants are public records that must – with rare and well-delineated exceptions – be released to members of the public, who employ those civil servants.

And yet, decades after the state Supreme Court resolved any serious question about the obligation of public agencies, the dockets of the Freedom of Information Commission are routinely clogged with cases in which one town or another is trying – through ignorance or willful law-breaking – to keep personnel files secret.

Usually, the arguments are worn and tired, but occasionally an agency will come up with a novel, if misplaced, justification for skirting the law. That’s the case with a complaint brought against the Ansonia Police Department, which refuses to release personnel records for one of its officer.

The request, made just shy of a year ago, came from New Haven attorney Gregory Cerritelli, who represents a man who was shot twice by Ansonia Police Officer Joseph Jackson, after the suspect allegedly drove his car directly at Jackson following a motor-vehicle stop. Cerritelli wanted to review Jackson’s employment application, training records and any Internal Affairs investigations.

The legislature and the courts have clearly and repeatedly mandated that the vast majority of a public employee’s personnel file is open for public review, and that agencies are violating state law when they try to block public access. But too often, that’s what agencies do.

In the Ansonia case, both the police department and the police union first argued that every line of every document in Jackson’s 227-page personnel file was exempt from disclosure because their release would amount to an unwarranted invasion of Jackson’s privacy. To those who understand Connecticut FOI law, it’s an absurd claim. Twenty-two years ago, the state Supreme Court set an exceptionally high bar for asserting the invasion-of-privacy exemption, declaring that it applies only when there is both no legitimate public interest in the contents of a document and when the release of the document would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.

It was, therefore, Ansonia’s stated position that the public has no legitimate interest in knowing about a police officer’s level of training, or salary, or hire date, or commendations, or on-the-job misdeeds, and also that it would be highly offensive to reveal a police officer’s level of training, or salary, or hire date, or commendations, or on-the-job misdeeds.

Under oath, however, the union representative acknowledged he hadn’t reviewed a single page of Jackson’s personnel file, and Ansonia Police Chief Kevin Hale, who said he did review the records, admitted he didn’t really believe the file was entirely exempt.

“When moving through that almost 300 pages [in the personnel file], you didn’t identify any documents in there that would have been disclosable?” Cerritelli asked the chief during cross-examination.

From there, the department moved on to Claim No. 2 – arguing that Jackson’s personnel file was exempt under the law that limits what police have to include when releasing an arrest report. The FOI Commission’s hearing officer, attorney Valicia Dee Harmon, seemed genuinely confused by the claim.

“But Officer Jackson wasn’t arrested, right?” Harmon asked the chief, at which time he explained the incident between Jackson and Cerritelli’s client.

“But the records that were requested, just so I can get some – the records that were requested are Officer Jackson’s personnel file, right?”

“Correct,” the chief acknowledged. And that was enough for Harmon to later note that the very court case Ansonia had relied on made it clear that the limitation on what must be released in arrest reports relates only to arrest reports.

Lastly, the department claimed that every document in Jackson’s personnel file was exempt under the portion of the Freedom of Information Act covering law enforcement records “compiled in connection with the detection or investigation of crime,” if releasing the records would cause some harm, such as damaging a pending criminal case.

Under questioning by Harmon, however, the chief acknowledged that nothing in the personnel file was compiled in connection with the detection or investigation of crime, and that nothing in the personnel file would be used in the criminal prosecution.

Ansonia’s puff-of-smoke arguments had no effect on the ultimate disposition of the case; Harmon dispensed with each of the arguments, and the full Freedom of Information Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to ratify her order that Ansonia release the disclosable portions of Jackson’s personnel file.

But while the records will be disclosed, these runarounds are not without cost.

It is 359 days and counting that Cerritelli has been wrongly forced to wait for the fulfillment of his lawful request.

Ansonia taxpayers will pick up the tab for the outside law firm the city tasked with handling the hopeless and ill-conceived battle.

And an already backlogged Freedom of Information Commission was forced to devote resources to an issue they have ruled on again and again and again and again.

The commission’s Ansonia ruling ends with an order the body is compelled to write scores if not hundreds of times a year: “Henceforth, the respondents shall strictly comply with the provisions of [the Freedom of Information Act.]”

It may be time for the commission to adopt a tougher stick.

]]>http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/yet-another-effort-to-keep-the-public-in-the-dark-about-the-publics-business/feed/0Secrecy-Obsessed Bureaucrats Battle for Coveted “Golden Padlock Award”http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/secrecy-obsessed-bureaucrats-battle-for-coveted-golden-padlock-award/
http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/secrecy-obsessed-bureaucrats-battle-for-coveted-golden-padlock-award/#commentsTue, 02 Jun 2015 19:23:05 +0000http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/?p=6490When the Boston Globe sought records related to crashes involving Massachusetts State Police cars, the agency said it would be happy to comply – for a fee of $62,200. The agency was also willing to release a log of public-records requests – for $42,750. And the Staties told a reporter for the Bay State Examiner that he would have to pay a $710.50 “non-refundable research fee” just to find out how much the agency would ultimately charge for copies of internal-affairs documents.

For “habitually going to extraordinary lengths to thwart public records requests, protect law enforcement officers and public officials who violate the law and block efforts to scrutinize how the department performs its duties,” the Massachusetts State Police was named one of four finalists for the Golden Padlock Award, a slightly tongue-in-cheek honor bestowed annually by the journalism organization Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE).

“It normally takes months or longer to respond to news media FOI requests. Requests for basic documents routinely produce refusals, large portions of blacked out documents or demands for tens of thousands of dollars in unjustified fees,” IRE gushed in announcing the department’s nomination. The news organization also quoted a 2013 story in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette that declared: “The Massachusetts State Police is a habitual offender – verging on a career criminal – when it comes to breaking a state law intended to ensure government is accountable to the people it serves.”

This is the third year IRE has led the hunt for “the most secretive government agency or individual in the United States.” Last year, the award was shared by the U.S. Navy FOI office, which not only stymied efforts by a reporter to obtain information on a shooting spree at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., but also accidentally sent the reporter an internal memo outlining the plan to keep records secret; and the governors of Oklahoma and Missouri, who went to extraordinary lengths to keep the public in the dark about problems with prison executions.

Joining the Massachusetts State Police as finalists this year are the Colorado Judicial Branch, which keeps records of its spending and disciplinary actions under wraps; The Texas Department of Public Safety, which tried to block inquiries into the validity of its border-security program; and the U.S. Department of Defense, which has stonewalled efforts to learn more about the massacre of 16 civilians in Afghanistan by an Army staff sergeant.

“There is a unique brand of courage displayed by public officials who deny, delay and circumvent the public’s right to know with a straight-faced sense of duty,” said Robert Cribb, a Toronto Star reporter and chair of IRE’s Golden Padlock committee. “They carry forward a rich tradition of undermining open records laws with ingenuity, commitment and condescension deserving of our acknowledgement.”

The winner will be announced at IRE’s annual conference this weekend.

]]>http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/secrecy-obsessed-bureaucrats-battle-for-coveted-golden-padlock-award/feed/0Charity Fraud Charges: Four Down, Hundreds to Gohttp://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/charity-fraud-charges-four-down-hundreds-to-go/
http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/charity-fraud-charges-four-down-hundreds-to-go/#commentsThu, 21 May 2015 13:20:01 +0000http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/?p=6476The fraud case brought against four spectacularly inefficient cancer charities is welcome news to watchdogs who have studied the fleecing of generous donors by unscrupulous nonprofits. But it is only the tip of the iceberg.

Americans donate hundreds of billions of dollars each year to more than 1.5 million tax-exempt organizations. The great majority are legitimate operations. But some – hundreds for sure – are little more than conduits that funnel money to professional fundraising firms while devoting pennies on the dollar to charitable purposes.

And there is often little the government can do about it.

The Federal Trade Commission has accused four related charities of “bilking” consumers out of $187 million by soliciting donations that charity officials said would be spent on cancer patients, when in fact nearly all of the money went to fundraisers and to finance the officials’ lavish lifestyles. While patients received modest boxes of sample-size toiletries and Little Debbie Snacks, according to the FTC lawsuit, charity officials (including at least 14 family members) enjoyed “vehicles, personal consumer goods, college tuition, gym memberships, Jet Ski outings, dating website subscriptions, luxury cruises, and tickets to concerts and professional sporting events” – all paid for with charitable donations. Professional fundraisers, meanwhile, pocketed 85 percent of the millions donated every year.

It all may seem shocking, but it is fairly par for the course for a swath of disreputable charities, often focused on cancer, sick children, veterans, and injured police and firefighters. The Tampa Bay Times’ excellent project on America’s Worst Charities currently includes 48 low-performing nonprofits – more than half of which allowed their solicitors to keep at least 80 cents of every dollar raised. An analysis of veterans charities by the Courant a decade ago found numerous organizations accepting contracts that gave fundraisers as much of 90 percent of donated money.

Under U.S. law, however, regulators are powerless to take action against charities simply for giving most of their money to fundraisers. Nor can they require solicitors to tell prospective donors how much of their contribution will actually make it to the charity. That, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, amounts to “forced speech.”

But while charities don’t have to come clean about what becomes of a charitable donation, they’re never allowed to actively lie about it. So the current FTC action, joined by all 50 states, accuses the four cancer charities of deceptive practices: intentionally misleading donors with false claims about the scope of the organizations’ work.

“Defendants have deceived donors into believing that their contributions support bona fide charities that use contributions primarily to provide cash grants and material supplies directly to cancer patients, children with cancer, and individuals with breast cancer in the United States,” the suit claims. “In reality, the Corporate Defendants do not operate as bona fide charities. Instead of operating for the benefit of cancer patients or otherwise serving legitimate, mission-related purposes, Corporate Defendants primarily support private interests.”

The charities – Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services, Children’s Cancer Fund of America and The Breast Cancer Society; all the collective brainchild of James T. Reynolds Sr. – have faced repeated scrutiny over the last quarter-century by at least seven states, including Connecticut. But they typically paid a small fine, promised to clean up their act, and got back to business.

The hammer of the FTC’s 148-page lawsuit appears to have had more impact. Faced with the prospects of millions in damages, two of the charities, as well as Reynolds’ son, ex-wife and a longtime business associate, agreed to settlements. Those charities will be dissolved and the individuals will be banned from fundraising, charity management and oversight of charitable assets. Litigation will continue against Reynolds and two of the charities he controls.

“This is the first time the FTC, all 50 states, and the District of Columbia have filed a joint enforcement action alleging deceptive solicitations by charities and I hope it serves as a strong warning for anyone trying to exploit the kindness and generosity of others,” said Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring.

If it’s also the last time, that warning may well be lost.

]]>http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/charity-fraud-charges-four-down-hundreds-to-go/feed/0No Shortage of Detractors for Racial Profiling Findingshttp://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/no-shortage-of-detractors-for-racial-profiling-findings/
http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/no-shortage-of-detractors-for-racial-profiling-findings/#commentsMon, 11 May 2015 21:15:45 +0000http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/?p=6467Racial and ethnic disparities in policing has long been an uneasy topic in Connecticut and across the country. And that was reflected in reaction to a Sunday story in the Courant reporting that black and Hispanic motorists pulled over for traffic violations were more likely to receive a ticket than were white motorists pulled over for the same offense.

Many commenters and email writers were quick to challenge the findings, advancing a slew of reasons why the data or the analysis was flawed, and confidently assuring that there was a legitimate reason for any disparities in policing. Some raised legitimate questions. Others misunderstood the analysis.

The Courant performed a similar analysis in 2012 – and received a similarly visceral reaction from many readers. So as we did three years ago, here’s an elucidation on a few of the topics raised by readers.

The most common misconception was that the reported disparities simply indicate that black and Hispanic drivers violate traffic laws at higher rates than white motorists. “Could minority drivers commit more motor vehicle violations than non-minority drivers?” one poster asked. “No, this can’t be true. that would be racist.”

That is a frequent response to racial-profiling studies, particularly those that focus on measuring the race and ethnicity of stopped drivers. But the Courant’s analysis focused exclusively on post-stop behavior and the often-discretionary decision – made after a police officer has witnessed a violation and stopped a driver – to give a ticket versus a warning. With that analysis, the underlying rate at which any one group commits motor-vehicle violations is irrelevant. Our analysis essentially asked: Of all motorists who were stopped for violating a particular law, what percentage received a ticket, and did that percentage vary by race and ethnicity? For every category of moving violation, the analysis showed black offenders were more likely than white offenders to receive a ticket, and Hispanic offenders were more likely to be ticketed than either whites or blacks.

(As to the poster’s initial point, police officials tell me that while there are differences in violation rates related to maintenance of vehicles and so-called “status offenses” such as driving without a license, registration or insurance – all of which have an economic component – there are no significant racial or ethnic differences in violation rates for moving violations.)

Others insisted the race and ethnicity of motorists cannot be gleaned from a distance, and reject any analysis of racial-profiling. But as noted, the Courant’s analysis looked only at post-stop behavior, when the race and ethnicity of the driver is easy to ascertain. (And the pre-stop analysis performed by researchers at Central Connecticut State University as part of the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project used a sophisticated and well-regarded method to identify trends suggesting racial and ethnic disparities in police stops.)

Several commenters and emailers wanted to know whether there were disparities in ticketing rates between white and minority officers. “Did anyone study the numbers of how many white motorists are ticketed when stopped by black or Hispanic officers?” one poster asked.

The traffic-stop data do not include the race or ethnicity of the officer. It’s possible that information could be gleaned from other data held by police agencies, and from a public policy perspective, it could be useful to see whether minority officers treat minority and white drivers differently than do white officers. Whatever that analysis found, however, it would not negate the bottom-line finding that overall, blacks and Hispanics face a greater likelihood of being ticketed, compared to whites pulled over for the same offense.

Other insisted race and ethnicity were entirely irrelevant to ticketing, and that the real determining factor in ticketing was the driver’s attitude. “Does the driver say yes sir, no sir, yes ma’am, no ma’am and speak respectfully, or give the officer a hard time or treat it like a joke?” one commenter asked. “I have said it before and will continue to say it. Its not race, its mostly behavior. Now track behavior by race.”

The data do not record the officer’s assessment of the attitude of the driver, but police officials I’ve spoken with over the years reject the idea that it would be acceptable for officers to essentially punish motorists with a bad attitude by treating them more harshly than those who behave subserviently.

Finally, some who wrote simply were confused about the mechanics of the traffic-stop survey. “If someone did not get a ticket how would they know. I don’t believe it” one wrote. Said another: “How does the study know the race of the driver? Are the researchers following the police? Is there a box on the ticket to check race?”

To answer those questions: police are required to report information on every traffic stop they make, including demographic information about the driver, the reason for the stop, and the outcome – even if no ticket is given. And the box to identify race is not on the ticket, but on the electronic form used with every stop, allowing researchers to analyze stops whether there is an arrest, a ticket, a warning, or no action at all.

Scot X. Esdaile, president of the Connecticut chapter of the NAACP, said he is “appalled” by efforts to dismiss the work of the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project, saying the findings merely add numbers to what he and others see as an obvious, indisputable fact of life.

The sharply differing opinions about the racial-profiling work may itself be evidence of the deep racial and ethnic divide that exists in the state, and how much work remains to answer the question posed by one of my email correspondents: “Why can’t we all just get along and judge everyone on their merits and not race?”

After the Courant exposed that a degree-selling outfit calling itself Denton University was claiming Genentech CEO Ian Clark as a graduate, Denton repeatedly reworked the online “alumni profile,” eventually swapping out Clark’s photo and claiming it was actually alumnus “Paul N. Johnson” who was the CEO of Genentech, a multi-billion-dollar drug company.

Wednesday, the profile was changed again, to delete any reference to Genentech. And now, Paul N. Johnson – who days ago was allegedly a biology graduate of Denton running a huge pharmaceutical company – has been re-imagined as a computer science graduate running an electronic medical record firm, among other things.

“Computer Engineer Alumnus Paul N. JohnSon has been Assigned as Cheif Executive Officer at Iros International, where He is managing also Lab Interface Projects,” the freshly rewritten profile now proclaims, complete with strange grammar, spelling errors and odd capitalizations. “Based in New york, he also heads EMR consultancy company name Allscripts which is also using genetic engineering research techniques in their labs and develop medicines with the help of Pharmaceutical Company.”

Iros International does not appear to be the name of any active U.S. company. Allscripts is a real company – although it’s based in Chicago, and its CEO and president is not named Paul Johnson.

The photo of Johnson in the fake alumni profile, meanwhile, remains that of a University of Minnesota student named Alfonso whose picture appeared in the student newspaper – before it mysteriously found its way to Denton’s website next to the name Paul N. Johnson.

The Courant’s original report a month ago found that some “life-experience” schools – loosely regulated businesses that offer advanced degrees with little or no academic work – routinely use inaccurate images and content on their websites. While Denton deleted references to Genentech and its CEO, other dubious portions of the website remain intact.

Denton still features “Ben Crawford” as a medical sciences degree graduate who raves about Denton’s classroom lectures – which do not exist. But the photograph of “Ben Crawford” is actually a stock image, and his testimonial about the school was lifted from a real alumni profile for a woman named Alison Wood, who appears on the website of the University of Birmingham, in England.

And a third alumni profile on Denton’s website, purportedly for a masters in education student named Amy Meehan, is actually a photograph of one graduate of Britain’s University of Southampton, with text taken from a profile for a different Southampton grad.

“I researched all of the opportunities for my specialism and Denton was not only local but also held a fantastic reputation. I spoke with colleagues and contacts within my field and they all agreed that Denton was by far the best option for me to pursue my academic studies,” the Denton website quotes “Amy Meehan” as saying – even though a representative acknowledged that Denton offers no academic studies.

That bears more than a passing resemblance to a quote by Lois Sellwood on Southampton’s website: “I researched all of the opportunities for my specialism and Southampton was not only local but also held a fantastic reputation. I spoke with colleagues and contacts within my field and they all agreed that Southampton was by far the best option for me to pursue my academic studies.”

Gaunt, in particular, was easy to identify. On Denton’s website, the image Denton claims is Amy Meehan has the filename “Sophie-Gaunt-144×144.”

As they have in the past, Denton officials did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

]]>http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/fake-alumnus-at-life-experience-school-gets-yet-another-new-job/feed/0Dodger Stadium Sells Enough Hot Dogs to Round the Bases 3,551 Timeshttp://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/dodger-stadium-sells-enough-hot-dogs-to-round-the-bases-3551-times/
http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/dodger-stadium-sells-enough-hot-dogs-to-round-the-bases-3551-times/#commentsMon, 06 Apr 2015 18:10:51 +0000http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/?p=6426Baseball season gets underway this week, and the cheering in the stands may be matched only by the cheering at something called the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, which is gleefully looking forward to the consumption of 18.5 million franks and another 4.2 million sausages at ball parks between now and the World Series.

The Council, part of something called the American Meat Institute, estimates season-long hot dog and sausage sales will rise about 6.5 percent at the nation’s 30 major league ballparks. And leading the way by a mile are fans in Los Angeles, where concessionaires are expected to sell 2.5 million of the park’s legendary Dodger Dogs. The 10-inch frank, which typically gets higher marks for nostalgia than culinary prowess, has a starting price of $5.50, and climbs from there with several variations, including the Brooklyn Dodger Dog with a snappy casing, and the chili- and jalapeno-topped Doyer Dog.

Fans of the Dodgers eat a million more hot dogs than the second-place New York Yankees, and outsell the sixth-placed Fenway Franks by 3-to-1. At the bottom of the pack is Kauffman Stadium (no relation) in Kansas City, where a barbecue pit and a smoker draw fans to cuisine the city is decidedly more famous for.

While the hot dog remains the staple of stadium fare, sausage sales are surprisingly plump at some ball parks, particularly in the Midwest. At Miller Park in Milwaukee, sausages actually outsell hot dogs, an indication of the marketing success of the stadium’s campy Sausage Race competition.

Below is a chart of estimated dog sales at all 30 parks.

]]>http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/dodger-stadium-sells-enough-hot-dogs-to-round-the-bases-3551-times/feed/0Connecticut Lottery: 43 Years, Nearly 25 Billion Dollarshttp://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/connecticut-lottery-43-years-nearly-25-billion-dollars/
http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/connecticut-lottery-43-years-nearly-25-billion-dollars/#commentsFri, 13 Feb 2015 18:14:21 +0000http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/?p=6395Forty-three years ago, as Connecticut officials were gearing up to sell the very first tickets for the state’s newly approved lottery, Gov. Thomas Meskill bullishly declared that residents’ appetite for legalized gambling would put $14 million into state coffers in that first year – a figure editorial writers at the Courant eyed dubiously as “optimistic.”

The paper needn’t have been skeptical. Meskill hit his figure, and in the years since the lottery’s launch on Feb. 15, 1972, ticket sales – and the state’s take of those sales – have skyrocketed.

In fiscal year 2014, lottery sales in Connecticut topped $1 billion for the fourth year in a row. That’s a hair under $400 a year for every Connecticut resident old enough to buy a ticket. Adjusted for both inflation and population, that is a five-fold increase over that first heady year. And with national surveys showing only about half the population plays the lottery, that suggests the average player is spending close to a $1,000 a year on tickets – with heavy players dropping several thousand.

As ticket sales have grown, so has the state’s share of the take, increasing from $14 million the first full year, to $319.5 million in 2014. For the last 20 years, inflation has accounted for much of that growth; since the mid-1990s, ticket sales and state revenue have been generally flat on an inflation-adjusted basis. But overall, the state has sold more than $24.7 billion since the lottery launched, keeping about a third of the money – more than $8 billion – as revenue.

Getting all that controversial cash was a political battle a decade in the making. When State Rep. Tony Miscikoski first drafted a lottery bill in 1961, it was trounced 190-64 in the House. But ten years later, lawmakers had warmed to the idea of millions in non-tax revenues, with four out of five legislators voting for state-sponsored gambling.

When the first lottery tickets were sold 43 years ago Sunday, the launch of legal gambling was a full-on cultural phenomenon. Smaller towns had a single authorized agent selling the 50-cent tickets, and long lines formed around some retailers. One car dealer offered a lottery ticket to anyone taking a test drive, and 51 tickets to anyone buying a car.

The first drawing, nine days later, was held at the Bushnell theater, in a spectacle featuring radio personality Bob Steele dressed all in green, and an actual “money tree” sporting 75 $1,000 bills – representing the top prize. Hundreds of ticket holders filled the seats, with a few racing down the aisles declaring they had won one of the smaller prizes.

State lotteries were so new – Connecticut’s was the sixth authorized – that FCC rules still barred broadcasters from promoting lotteries, leaving local television stations scrambling to determine if they could legally report on the drawing, so long as they didn’t mention the winning numbers. Newspapers faced a problem of their own. Federal law banned mailing newspapers containing ads for lotteries. The Courant and other larger papers published special editions for mail customers with lottery advertisements eliminated, but many smaller papers with single editions were forced to reject the ads.

Players who matched each of five numbers in that first drawing won $5,000 instantly, and news outlets crowded into their living rooms and wrote stories listing every winner.

Clarence Holston of Danbury, now 75, was one of those lucky ticket holders. “It was a very exciting experience and more exciting for my wife than it was for me,” Holston said this week. “It came in very handy at that particular time because we had just bought a house. It helped us out tremendously.”

Holston stills play the lottery weekly, buying either Powerball or Cash5 tickets. Although he says he hasn’t replicated his first-drawing luck, he also figures he’s still in the plus column.

While Holston was and is a lottery fan, there have always been detractors. One legislator who voted against the lottery bemoaned: “We are about to become Reno East.” And Dr. John H. Felber, a local psychiatrist, called the state’s lottery “the worst swindle they can do to people,” saying the state’s take was too large and the odds of winning too small.

Opponents of the lottery persist, pointing to the serious problem of gambling addiction, and in fact millions of dollars in lottery revenue are directed every year to programs for problem gamblers. But with hundreds of millions pouring into state coffers every year, there is likely no cure for politicians’ addiction to the games.

]]>http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/connecticut-lottery-43-years-nearly-25-billion-dollars/feed/0A Transparency Advocate’s Legislative Wish Listhttp://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/a-transparency-advocates-legislative-wish-list/
http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/a-transparency-advocates-legislative-wish-list/#commentsThu, 08 Jan 2015 13:47:58 +0000http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/?p=6388I recently obtained an internal email in which a lawyer for a public agency laid out the agency’s strategy for responding to a request for records under the Freedom of Information Act.

Step One was identifying the records the agency was willing to release.

Step Two was identifying the records the agency had no intention of releasing.

And then Step Three, almost as an afterthought, was determining whether there was actually an exception under the Freedom of Information Act that would provide a legal basis for keeping the withheld documents secret from the public.

“As we discussed we can always withhold a document even if there is no exception,” the lawyer wrote, with the understanding that the agency might have to concoct a justification for the illegal act if the requester was savvy enough to pursue an appeal to the Freedom of Information Commission.

It wasn’t the first such email I had been made privy to, and it reminded me of the need for vigilance in Freedom of Information matters and the importance of constantly reminding the public servants who work for us that they do, in fact, work for us. They’re paid by us, they’re sworn to serve us. And with rare exceptions, all of the paperwork and data they produce and collect while on our payroll belongs to us, and should be provided to us without a fight.

So as the Legislature gets down to business this week, here’s one transparency advocate’s wish list, for any lawmakers willing to champion the not-so-radical concept that the people’s business really is the people’s business.

1. Open up public school teacher evaluations

As noted previously in this space, the legislature was hoodwinked 30 years ago into throwing a cloak of secrecy over “records of teacher performance and evaluation,” and inexplicably defined the term “teacher” to cover every school professional except the superintendent. Among those employed by the public, educators are the only class of workers whose evaluations are exempt from public scrutiny – even as they are the perhaps the public servants with the most critical jobs. That’s not good public policy.

2. Open up professors’ evaluations, too

As if it weren’t troubling enough that teacher evaluations are off-limits, the legislature added to the injury five years later by extending the secrecy to evaluations of publicly employed professors at UConn and the state university system. Worse still, the legislature was perhaps napping in 1997 when they signed off on a union contract for those who teach in the state university system that included this language: “The entire contents of personnel files shall be considered private and may not be opened to any outside scrutiny except when ordered by a court of law.” (It’s tempting to adopt the stance that it is not “outside scrutiny” when a member of the public seeks to review personnel records for an employee of the public – but that’s not likely to fly.) This back-door exemption to the Freedom of Information Act has carried the force of law since the legislature tacitly approved it 18 years ago. It should be written out of the next collective-bargaining agreement.

3. Shine some light on the UConn Foundation

Last year a bill that would have subjected the UConn Foundation to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act went absolutely nowhere. Try again. The Foundation is paid with University funds to perform a public function. The public is entitled to more information about how it operates.

4. Restrict the use of private email accounts for public business

It is too easy for public officials to play cat-and-mouse with public-access rules by conducting business through gmail and other private email servers. The state should either require the use of official email accounts or set clear rules on the use of alternatives, including disclosure of the accounts and assurances that their archiving policies comply with the state’s record-retention laws.

5. Clarify the law on arrest records

Reporters, police officers, lawyers and judges have spent countless hours trying to make sense of the imprecise language of Connecticut General Statutes section 1-215, which mandates the release of certain information after an arrest. The Freedom of Information Commission maintains that statute sets a floor and represents that information that must be released in every case – with additional information subject to the other provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. The state police – and the state Supreme Court after a lengthy deconstruction of the statute – believe that the statute represents the maximum that police agencies are required to release. But no one know for sure. Lawmakers: Your predecessors made this mess. Fix it.

6. Undo the Martin Gould decision

With little fanfare last month, the state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that arbitration panels established under the Teacher Negotiation Act are not public agencies and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information. The lengthy ruling, which centered in significant measure on the definition of the words “in” and “of,” led to a stinging dissent by Justice Andrew J. McDonald. “Today’s majority opinion substantially frustrates the clear legislative policy requiring transparency in the operations of government that is contained in the Freedom of Information Act,” he wrote. “In doing so, the majority has undermined the integrity of this court’s previous construction of the FOIA and has thwarted the goal of open government.”

All parties agree that the statute at issue, C.G.S. 10-153f, is ambiguous. So legislators: Fix that, too.

7 Speed up the FOI appeal process

The concept that justice delayed is justice denied is a sentiment not unfamiliar to those who pursue an appeal to the Freedom of Information Commission. The Commission cranked out formal rulings last year at a rate of about one every work day. But demand for their judgment remains strong and complainants frequently wait eight or more months for a hearing. For cases with broad and significant public interest, that’s too long. Transparency in government is a pillar of democracy, and if the Commission needs more resources, they should be provided. Alternatively, the Commission should make greater use of its authority to expedite hearings in cases – yes, including those typically brought by the media – that are neither personal nor commercial in nature, but clearly involve document requests made in the public interest.

8. Require public officials to take FOI laws seriously.

The Commission’s heavy workload would be lightened, of course, if more public officials knew and followed the law. Some jurisdictions around the country have laws specifically mandating that public officials study open-records laws. There are transparency advocates who belittle those laws as wishful thinking, but maybe they’re not such a bad idea, if only to send the message that FOI laws matter. At the Courant, we spend an inordinate amount of time sparring with public officials – even public officials whose specific job is to comply with transparency laws – who make uninformed and erroneous claims about the sorts of documents an agency can legally withhold from the public, or the fees they are permitted by law to charge for those records, or the rules for conducting the public’s business in secret.

If nothing else, it’d be amusing to see who might line up to oppose a bill that would expressly require public officials to read and understand their obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. Before the November election, the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information asked legislative candidates to sign a pledge supporting transparency laws. Most were defeated. But 11 were elected. So: Any takers?

]]>http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/a-transparency-advocates-legislative-wish-list/feed/0Once again, Spending the Public’s Money to Keep the Public in the Darkhttp://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/once-again-spending-the-publics-money-to-keep-the-public-in-the-dark/
http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/once-again-spending-the-publics-money-to-keep-the-public-in-the-dark/#commentsThu, 04 Dec 2014 18:45:39 +0000http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/?p=6383The Connecticut State Colleges & Universities system, with its 90,000 students and $300 million in state aid, is among the most expensive and most important government operations. So when Michael Gargano Jr. abruptly resigned his $224,554 job as provost last month, the taxpayers of Connecticut might have felt entitled to a robust exit interview, to learn why he was dissatisfied with the governance of the system and in particular how his thinking differed from that of his boss, Board of Regents President Gregory Gray.

But that’s not likely to happen.

As my colleague Kathy Megan has reported, a separation agreement Gargano and Gray signed contractually bars Gargano from uttering a sentence that disparages Gray – or anyone else connected to the state’s higher education network. Specifically, Gargano’s deal prohibits him from making any derogatory statement about the Board of Regents, about his employment with the Board of Regents or about any current or previous member, employee or officer of the Board of Regents.

On the other side of the ledger, the agreement continues Gargano’s paycheck for nearly 16 weeks, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $65,000. That payment – roughly equal to a year’s salary for a typical state employee – is not required by Gargano’s employment contract.

As is typical of negotiated employment separations, the agreement also bars Gargano from suing his former employer. There’s no indication he had any basis for a suit, although if he was in fact treated in a way that violated the law, perhaps that, too, is something the taxpayers had a right to know.

So in the end, an employee of the public has signed off on giving tens of thousands of dollars of the public’s money to another public employee as part of a deal that will keep the public in the dark about the public’s business.

]]>http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/once-again-spending-the-publics-money-to-keep-the-public-in-the-dark/feed/0How We Knew Tom Foley Was in Trouble on Election Nighthttp://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/how-we-knew-tom-foley-was-in-trouble-on-election-night/
http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/how-we-knew-tom-foley-was-in-trouble-on-election-night/#commentsThu, 06 Nov 2014 18:36:07 +0000http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/?p=6365For hours after the polls closed Tuesday night, as vote tallies cropped up from town to town, Tom Foley enjoyed a steady if tantalizingly thin margin in his quest to unseat Gov. Dan Malloy.

But here at The Scoop, we could tell early on that Foley was in serious trouble, even as he seemed to be thousands of votes ahead.

Our early warning came from a simple system that not only compiled the local results as they were announced, but also analyzed how each candidate was faring compared to their initial match four years ago. That deeper look at the numbers showed that almost from the beginning, there was evidence Foley was facing an uphill battle to avoid a replay of his 2010 defeat.

Connecticut elections typically display a sharp divide between the most-populous cities, which vote overwhelmingly Democratic, and smaller suburban and rural towns, many of which lean moderately or heavily Republican. But it’s those smaller towns, many with a single voting precinct, that report early, giving Republican candidates a phantom edge that can be wiped out when the totals come in from the cities.

In the newsroom, we could see that while Foley once again did well in traditionally Republican towns, he was losing ground in many of those communities compared to four years ago. Later, it was evident that he had failed to substantially chip away at Malloy’s huge margins of victory in the large cities. For more details on how Malloy’s victory came together, see my colleague Dan Haar’s excellent analysis.

Tuesday’s vote offered a fresh reminder of the dangers of reading too much into early returns. So on election nights to come, it’s worth remembering that even with hyper-competitive news coverage of a hyper-competitive political process, patience is still a virtue.

The map below shows how Malloy and Foley fared Tuesday, compared to their vote spreads in 2010. Towns shaded blue are those in which Malloy performed better than four years ago, either by extending his margin of victory or shrinking Foley’s. Similarly, red-shaded towns are those in which Foley either won by more votes or lost by fewer. Deeper colors indicate are more dramatic improvement over 2010. Click on a town for details.